Fiji were still celebrating their success at making the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time when the Wales head coach, Gareth Jenkins, was summarily fired after a meeting of the Welsh Rugby Union's board of directors on Saturday evening.

Even if Wales had made the last eight, Jenkins would still have been only one defeat away from dismissal after alienating a large section of the Welsh media. The WRU's capacity to panic, and its desire to be seen to be doing the right thing, means it is looking for its 13th head coach in the last 21 years.

Jenkins' record - his success rate in 16 months in charge was 33% - was enough to guarantee the sack, even if, relatively, it was not particularly lamentable. Never mind that Wales played rugby here at a level higher than England, Ireland and Scotland have attained, or that they came to reflect the intense pressure Jenkins was under, adopting a style they perceived to be expected of them when they needed to tighten up and get ugly. The attitude appears to be, get rid of the coach and everything will be fine. Until next time.

The trouble is, the revolving door is operating faster and faster. The WRU's chief executive, Roger Lewis, might have been expected to jam his foot in it and call for a review of the coaching set-up when calm had set in, rather than justify the knee-jerk reaction in cliches yesterday. Various names will be linked with the job, but anyone of any pedigree, especially if they are not Welsh, will think long and hard about working for employers who have long treated the head coach's position as if it called for an alchemist, a man with the magic touch.

The WRU is arguably more culpable than Jenkins for the mess its game is in. The 2006 Six Nations was one match old when Wales held a media conference to announce the team to face Scotland. The captain, Gareth Thomas, refused to go in when he noticed a journalist in the room he thought had been asked to stay away. When the then coach, Mike Ruddock, already the subject of a whispering campaign, asked Thomas and the rest of the players to go in with him, he was asked: "Are you with us or against us?" Ruddock went out to face the press alone and when the WRU did not publicly rebuke the squad but instead broke off contract negotiations with him, he knew his time was up.

Wales won one game that Six Nations, against Scotland, and the air was thick with dust when Jenkins took over in the following May. Players were on the defensive after denying allegations that they had plotted to oust Ruddock and being forced to take part in an internal WRU inquiry into the affair, and with 15 months to go before the World Cup, Jenkins did not have the time to overhaul the squad. Instead, he tried to introduce a more pragmatic game plan but the players were disciples of the run-from-everywhere style of their erstwhile skills coach Scott Johnson.

Jenkins tried to bind Wales's four regions closer to the national side but again met resistance. He favoured the blitz defence used so successfully by Wasps, but it is a system operated in Wales only by the Ospreys. The other three regions refused to go along with it and there were passages at this World Cup when some players rushed up but one or two were not so sharp - more bits than blitz - and the resulting space was ruthlessly exploited.

Critics will say that if the regions are not serving the national side, the WRU is wasting £12m a year. As Jenkins, who was back in Wales yesterday, along with his former charges, said before the Fiji game: "My concern is that people in the union are going to make calls based on public opinion. They are naturally going to be pressurised. It is impossible to inform and influence the public. I don't think we really want an objective view of international rugby in Wales. It is far easier to have a chaos environment and it is difficult to get the message you want out there."

Wales are where they have been for the most of the last 20 years - going around in circles. Any coach worth his badges applying for the Wales job now will probably demand a four-year contract through to the end of the next World Cup along with guarantees that the WRU will address a number of policy issues, starting with the regions. Even then, no matter what the salary, any top coach would think twice.

So who's next for the hottest seat in rugby?

Scott Johnson 3-1

Former Wales skills coach, loved by the players but unlikely to be free after helping rescue Australia

Phil Davies 4-1

The leading Welsh contender, may prefer to wait until the next time. Won't have long

Eddie Jones 5-1

Former Australia coach is helping out South Africa before joining Saracens. Would take a lot to tempt

Warren Gatland 6-1

Will wait to see what happens with the New Zealand position before jumping in